


Written In Starlight

by SignificanttOtter



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Forgiveness, Gen, Guardian Uldren, Making Peace with the Past, a bit of angst and a bit of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:26:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26485618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SignificanttOtter/pseuds/SignificanttOtter
Summary: The Guardian and Petra Venj were bound to Uldren Sov even before the night they took his life. They thought his death was the end of their shared story, but when he is raised as a guardian it becomes a beginning.A series of connected scenes featuring my awoken hunter, Selene.
Relationships: Female Guardian & Petra Venj, Female Guardian & Uldren Sov
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	Written In Starlight

When The Vanguard learns that Uldren has risen, Selene begs them not to tell Petra Venj. She and the Queen's Wrath had been the ones to kill him, so news that he is alive should come from her. It is not as hard a sell as she feared. Commander Zavala questions whether she is emotionally prepared for the task, and she answers honestly: 'I don't know'. Ikora looks thoughtful for a few moments before wishing her good luck, which is as much of a blessing as she could hope for.

She begins the grim work of deciding how to tell her.

Selene does not call ahead. She will not lie about the meaning of her visit, and fears making the situation more difficult that it already is by awkwardly avoiding explanations. Petra has enough to deal with as the acting leader of the Dreaming City, and the hunter is not willing to prolong her stress with a vague request to talk.

She finds the Wrath in Rheasilvia, sniping taken from a makeshift camp nestled between rocky crags in the cliffside. From the look of it, she's expecting to be set up here at least overnight, a sleeping bag and camp stove joining the stacks of electronics meant to monitor the intruders from the ascendant plane. Selene gives a quiet sigh of relief for seclusion of the area. Few corsairs and guardians are roaming about during this week of low curse, but she still doesn't want to risk an unexpected visitor.

When Petra hears Selene approach, she peeks over her shoulder. "Ah—? Cousin!" she lowers her rifle and props it against an equipment rack before approaching. Her smile is welcoming as always, and it would be a comfort to Selene if she didn't know what was coming next. "I wasn't expecting you to be on patrol. Not much is happening today."

"I'm not here on patrol." She tries to steady her breath, arrange her thoughts, as she puts her hand on Petra's shoulder. Petra's smile falters, and she suddenly feels more like she's delivering news of a death than a birth.

"I … I don't know how to tell you this…"

When she does, Petra slumps against her. Selene can do little except hold her as her body is wracked with sobs, and cannot speak as the tears well in her own eyes.

  


* * *

  


They talk for a long time, building a small fire after the sun has set. Devoid of moons or planets, the night sky here is dark and clear, dominated by the warped radial of stars overhead, and the black, ringed tangle of the cloaking device. Ever-present reminders they are hidden away from the universe beneath the thinnest of veils.

Petra is curled on her sleeping bag, head resting next to the hunter's leg. Selene pokes at the fire absentmindedly, more to have something to do than to keep it kindled. She watches gentle ripples of light beneath skin usually hidden in gauntlets, and the patterns flickering beneath Petra's scarred face. She thinks about the things that have bound her, Petra and Uldren together: as people born of starlight and dark, as participants in the tragedy of the Reef, and in his death.

Her ghost is snuggled in the cowl of her cloak; all night he has been listening intently, but barely speaking. She reaches up and touches him, and thinks about how she and Uldren are bound in one more way now. Wonders what his is like, and hopes they're a good one.

"Will he be the same?" Petra asks after a long stretch of silence. Her face no longer wet with tears, but her voice is no less heavy with grief.

"I don't know." Selene responds plainly. She can only speak for the experience of her own rebirth, and does so. She tells Petra about the snow-swept antenna array her ghost found her in. About the notebook filled with equations she does not know, and the backpack full of instruments she could not recognize. That she must have been a scientist or engineer in her last life, but doesn't feel like one now because she isn't one. She admits she does not know how personality persists across death and revival — there are too many conflicting anecdotes — but she is confident that whoever he is now will be different, somehow.

Petra reminisces about the happy times she and Uldren had. Although the stories are unfamiliar to Selene, Petra speaks with such intimate candor she can imagine herself there, and feels an ache that she wasn't. She describes a time before Riven sunk her hooks into him, before the Battle of Saturn, before he traveled to the Black Garden and returned changed. A time of hardships faced together with joy in their hearts. She admits she is not sure what's more terrifying: Uldren being the same person he was before, daring and driven and loyal, all of it to the point of self-destruction, or a clean slate, unrecognizable except for his face and voice.

Selene wonders the same thing. She tends the fire and gazes out at the twinkling darkness and offers Petra a ride home, but finds she is already sleeping.

  


* * *

  


Selene leaves the tower to investigate an eyewitness sighting in the Cosmodrome. She spends her days searching the vast complex and finds little more than piles of ash and trodden snow for her effort. At night, she finds herself shivering against cold she is wholly unaccustomed to and provisioning enough solar light to stave off frostbite. It works as long as she stays awake, but exhaustion eventually overcomes her and she wakes to find her ghost repairing numb, swollen flesh.

By the fifth evening, her ghost asks how much longer they'll spend before she calls off the search. He speaks with the gentle prodding of a worried loved one, a tone uncomfortably familiar to Selene. He sounds this way whenever he questions whether it's worth it to pour energy into curse-locked Dreaming City, or when he asks her to be safe as they scour the Reef for would-be allies among the eliksni.

Determined but soft-spoken, she replies they will keep looking for as long as it takes. He sags, but does not challenge her. In apology or consolation, she waves him closer, and he nestles against her chest armor as she curls beneath her cloak and attempts to rest.

Near sundown on the sixth day, she scrambles up a radio tower to better survey the area. Her heart pounds when she sees smoke near an abandoned eliksni camp on the edge of the south launchpad. Looking through binoculars, she catches fleeting glimpses of a person moving beneath tattered purple canopies. While she does not see a face, the armor matches the description given by the scout.

Although she is not particularly cold, her hands tremble hard enough that climbing down is a challenge.

She avoids line-of-sight as she approaches but doesn't hide herself otherwise. Ice-glazed snow crunches beneath her boots, alerting Uldren — the Guardian _who was_ Uldren, she catches herself — and he swivels and reaches for his weapon as quickly as she can raise her hands. Levels its sight on her, despite her apparent offer of peace. She is disappointed with herself for how much she's shaking, and hopes he doesn't notice or thinks it's because of the chill. "There's no need . . . look, I'm only here to—"

"Leave." He sounds tired-to-the-bone, and this is somehow more alarming than the arrogance she remembered and half-feared hearing again.

She unfastens her helmet and lets it drop in the snow. She hopes he'll see some part of himself in the ripples of starlight under her skin and the cloth draped over her shoulders, and feel a bit of the same connection that led her out into the frigid wilderness. Her eyes water, against the wind and with emotion, and she fights herself to not look away. "Please . . . will you put it down? I'm not here to fight."

His arms fall, and he tucks the sidearm somewhere against his back. Takes a step backward and keeps his eyes locked on her, though she cannot bear to look any higher than the cowl of his threadbare cloak. "Who are you?"

"Selene. I'm a hunter, like you." She wonders if that was too on-the-nose, and hesitates before going on. "What's your name?"

"Don't pretend not to know." The bitterness in his delivery hits her like a fist to the chest. "Everybody knows me. You wouldn't be here if you weren't looking, so you must, too."

"I know who you used to be, in your last life. But I didn't ask about _his_ name. I asked about _yours_."

He looks down and his shoulders droop. "I haven't got one."

  


* * *

  


Another night and another campfire. Brighter this time, the snow reflecting silver moonlight and the soft orange of the flames. He asks Selene what she knows, says he needs to understand what's so wrong with him that other risen can't stand his presence. 

She considers the request. Guardians are not allowed to learn about their pasts, true. But his past, unfortunately, happens to be their present; concealing it now would only make the inevitable discovery harder. She is quiet for a while, struggling to find a tactful way to describe the unthinkable. Reasoning that it is not possible to be both honest and spare him further hurt, she decides to tell him everything, and hopes it's the right thing to do.

She does not talk about the Yang Liwei, Distributary, or early Reef, not because they are unimportant but because those are not her stories to tell, and would add little to his understanding at this time. So she sticks to the relevant beats. That he had been nobility. That he had been metaphysically poisoned by a dangerous place. That he lost everything to a hive god, and became twice-corrupted through his machinations. That he inflicted terror on his — _their_ — own people, was imprisoned, and murdered a member of guardian leadership during his escape. That he was the subject of a system-wide manhunt . . .

He is statue-still with the terror and realization of what he had done and what had been done to him even before Selene tells him how it ended. She fights herself to free the words — that she was the one, no, one of the ones to pull the trigger. She braces for _something_ , panic or accusation or being told to leave and never return, and it feels more cataclysmic he says nothing. He stares into the smoldering remains of the fire, tears rolling down his cheeks.

The silence is punctuated only with the occasional pop of embers and wind rustling the loose canvas of the shelter. A heavy, tense feeling settles in Selene's chest; what felt necessary moments ago now feels recklessly cruel. Her understanding there was no good way to tell him does not stop her mind from racing to analyze every word she just spoke, ask herself where she went wrong.

Finally, he speaks, voice barely above a whisper. "Pulled Pork told me all about the Traveler. About how good it is." He thumbs the ghost resting on his knee. His ornate purple flanges are limp and eye downcast, and her heart aches most for having to involve him in all this. She reminds herself he became involved the moment he found Uldren's body, and that he must understand too, no matter how painful. "If I . . . whoever I used to be . . . did so much wrong, why did it choose me?"

"Nobody knows why we're chosen. Maybe it doesn't care what we did, just what we can become." She pauses to dry her face against the back of a gloved hand. "Whatever happened in your previous life, it's not _your_ fault. You shouldn't have to answer for what _he_ did. But you can't take this on alone. Let me help you, please?"

For the first time since the start of their talk, he looks away from the fire, and she looks him in the eyes.

He nods.

  


* * *

  


Most guardians are far enough from, or led mundane enough past lives that there is little curiosity about their origins.

He is decidedly unlike other guardians.

Robbed of a fresh start, he becomes a spectacle. A case study in the Traveler's decision making process. Some think of him as an example of the light's boundless love and triumph over the darkness, while others see a cruel testament to its hubris, or a sign that the cracks run deeper than its shell. No other guardian has been so controversial for merely existing; his presence in the Tower is contested enough that The Vanguard must issue a statement forbidding would-be vigilantes from harming him.

Despite this, some are willing to accept him into their circles. He no longer lives as a recluse in his little city-issued starter apartment. Starts to adjust to the life of a young guardian, and Last City society. He mulls names for himself, learns where to go and not go, reads about the history of the risen, the City, humanity. Begins piecing together something of an identity.

In this sense, he is like every guardian, learning to walk a profoundly strange yet well-worn path.

Through all of it, Selene is a mentor of sorts. She does not feel well-suited to the role, but the city is perpetually short on seasoned hunters willing to teach young guardians. On top of that, she is responsible for him being here in all ways that matter. She wishes she could take him to older, wiser hunters: Ana Bray, who carries the burden of knowing her pre-guardian life, or Eris Morn, who knows other guardians’ judgement for having the wrong face. Surely they could provide life advice that Selene can only guess at. They are occupied though; even if she could get hold of them it would not feel right burdening them with more.

Although his use of the light is initially directionless, even crude, he enjoys sparring with Selene. With time, he learns to channel it in ways befitting a guardian. She has never seen him smile as brightly as when he first conjures a void bow, and in that moment she feels as if she might see a bit of the old Uldren, the one she had never known but whom Petra had spoken so tenderly about.

They learn he is truly apt with void and she appreciates the balance of it. A man who died in the darkness and was reborn in the light wielding a power once theorized to occupy a space between the two. She thinks it is very awoken of him, and hopes he will appreciate it too, when he learns more about his origins.

But those are not her stories to tell. So one morning, she asks if he will join her in visiting a friend.

  


* * *

  


This time she calls ahead. Makes sure that Petra is comfortable meeting the-guardian-who-was-Uldren. Reminds her that he will not be the person she remembers, for all that entails. Petra reassures Selene that she is ready, though there is a note of grief in her voice, clear even with the heavy modulation of the low-bandwidth coms.

As they zip toward the Asteroid Belt, he questions whether it's safe to go to the Dreaming City. When he was revived there, Pulled Pork told him it was too dangerous to linger and hurried him away on the first unguarded galliot they could find. She replies that he has little to fear if he stays with her and Petra. The irony of the two people who had ended his previous life now protecting it is not lost on Selene, although she wishes it would be.

He seems to take Selene's reassurance to heart, hands uncurling and body shifting back in his seat comfortably. The jumpship drops from warp and the dizzying blur of light is replaced with the pastels of 4 Vesta's atmosphere.

The Dreaming City is a sight at this altitude, rocky peaks and thick haze dissolving into watercolor blues, purples and greens of the sky at the horizon. There are no signs of the turmoil on the surface, and Selene finds it easy to picture the City as it was before the Taken King defiled it. She is likewise tempted to imagine it as it could be; freed from the Witch Queen's curse, restored to its glory as the sacred center of Awoken society. The thought lights a spark in her, half yearning and half fury. She hopes to kindle it into an inferno one day.

He gazes out the porthole, his ghost crowding his face to get a look. "I'm from here?"

"It's where you were rezzed isn't it?" She suspects that's not what he meant, but wants to make a point. 

"No — in my first life."

There is an eagerness to his voice she is not used to hearing when he asks about his past, and she isn't sure how to feel about it. He has learned so much about the sorrow in his last life that he should be permitted to find solace in the joy. But there exists an irrational fear. How much is he like his old self? Before Riven, Oryx, the Black Garden, when his love and loyalty fractured him, not fatally, but enough to let the darkness take root in the cracks. Even without those extraordinary circumstances, could he be broken again? Would the same fertile soil still lie beneath?

Selene’s grip tightens on the armrests of her seat. She will not let herself dwell on the thought. Not today. "Well . . . it depends on how you define it. Petra will tell you when we see her." The autopilot kicks off as they near The Strand, and she takes the controls, steering the ship into a landing pattern. "It won't be long now."

They disembark, mist collecting around their boots as they cross the rocky soil and up the winding path to Petra's station. He lags behind, too busy admiring the beauty around him and lost in conversation with Pulled Pork to keep up. Or pay attention to the distant sounds of hive skirmishing with scorn, Selene thinks with relief. There are some topics she would prefer to avoid on a visit that's meant to be pleasant.

As Selene crests the hill, she spots Petra waiting beneath the pavilion at the far end of the bridge. The Queen's Wrath stands with squared shoulders and clasped hands, but as Selene nears she notices her poise is belied by furrowed brows, strain lines at the corners of her mouth. Something between a smile and suppressed sob. Stepping beneath the canopy, they share a brief, desperately tight embrace. Selene thanks Petra for meeting with them, and she in turn thanks her for not giving up on him.

They had all lost so much, Selene muses with a heavy heart. Petra had lost the most important people in her world; Selene had lost a friend, and a way of life she didn't know existed until it was gone. Uldren had lost _everything_ , himself included, even before the night that they had written the final chapter of the Prince's story. She is determined to not let anything or anyone else be lost. Not Petra, not the guardian standing behind her, not the Awoken people, the Dreaming City, or a chance at peace with the Eliksni.

Most of all, not hope. All of them were products of final, hopeful acts of defiance in one way or another. The awoken had been born from the last action of a woman faced with sure death; the guardians of a mysterious dying machine. Hope is as much a part of them as the blood in their veins or the starlight under their skin. They must never lose it.

They turn away from each other as the young hunter steps off the bridge, ghost zipping out of view into his bag. His eyes dart sheepishly between his fellow hunter and the Regent-Commander before finally settling on the ground. Stepping closer, Petra rests her hand on his shoulder. She looks him in the face and smiles, small but genuine, and draws his gaze to hers. 

"Welcome home, cousin."

  


**Author's Note:**

> If you've gotten this far, thank you for reading my first posted writing in seven years! I had this little scene in my head that wouldn't leave me alone of Selene, Petra and Guardian Uldren all meeting in the Dreaming City. This whole thing was a vehicle for that. Also, Season of Arrivals has left me hungry for some positive and hopeful interactions.
> 
> (Fun game: Spot the reference to the _Sleepless_ lore tab.)
> 
> Thanks to @Tower_Pigeon_428 for beta reading, and some editing when I got stuck on flow on parts 5 and 6.
> 
> I'm rusty, so constructive criticism and comments are very much appreciated.


End file.
